Charter School Performance in Chicago

CHICAGO, Dec. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a statement from Andrew Broy, President, Illinois Network of Charter Schools, regarding charter school performance in Chicago:

Your recent report on relative Chicago charter school performance takes a single piece of evidence and constructs several misleading conclusions. It is a disservice to families seeking to understand school performance when the analysis neglects to include the impact of student growth over time.

Let's stipulate at the outset that charter school performance in Chicago is uneven.  Any group of 110 school campuses in Chicago will have varying performance levels.  Let's further stipulate that the best measure of school performance is the impact a school has on student attainment.  After all, charter schools are open enrollment public schools and we take students when we find them and help them improve.

By those measures, the report is flawed in two notable respects.  First, the article compares charter school proficiency rates to the Chicago average, a figure that includes selective enrollment schools that select students based on test results.  It is hardly surprising that such schools would have higher average proficiency rates since, unlike charter schools, they screen for performance prior to admission.  Second, and more troubling, is that the overall average proficiency rate of any individual school says nothing about whether students in that school have improved over the course of the year.  The only way to determine whether schools are actually helping students improve is to examine growth data.  That is why most districts and states, including Chicago, are moving toward a growth model as a far better predictor of school success. 

So what does the growth data say about Chicago charter schools?  When one examines eleventh graders in charter schools and reviews their growth since 9th grade, the results are striking.  On the ACT EPAS series of exams which show growth over three years, charter schools outperformed traditional district schools by wide margins.  In 2011, of the 26 Chicago charter high schools with sufficient data over three years, 17 schools outperformed average growth in Chicago.  Across all charter schools, the average growth rate of 3.8 scale points over those three years is 60% higher than the Chicago average, an average that includes selective enrollment high schools.  This trend holds true for each of the past three cohorts of students.

We at the Illinois Network of Charter Schools are the first to challenge charter schools that are not living up to their student performance targets and have in the past supported the closure of underperforming charter schools.  But any such decisions should be made with a clear-eyed view of relevant growth data, a factor your article completely ignored.

Andrew Broy

President, Illinois Network of Charter Schools

The Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS) is dedicated to the improvement of education by establishing high-quality charter public schools that transform lives and communities.  As the voice of the Illinois charter schools, INCS advocates for legislation on behalf of the charter sector, provides support to strengthen charter schools, and influences education policy for the benefit of all public school students.

Contacts: Sylvia Ewing,
312-629-2063 x33
[email protected]

SOURCE Illinois Network of Charter Schools